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Featured Report: The Graduate Market in 2015 (High Fliers)

Yesterday saw the release of one of the most anticipated annual job market reports as High Fliers published ‘The Graduate Market in 2015’ based upon research conducted in December 2014. It’s pretty much a case of positive news all round with predictions that graduate recruitment will be at its highest for a decade. This means that the first students to pay the higher university tuition fees will graduate into a buoyant market with rising numbers of vacancies and salaries to match. The full report can be read herebut some of the main points are summarised below:

Following a rise of 7.9% in 2014, the UKs leading 100 graduate employers plan a further 8.1% increase in graduate recruitment in 2015. This will be the third consecutive year that vacancies have increased.

This increase will take graduate recruitment beyond the pre-recession peak of 2007 and means that there will be more opportunities for this years’ university leavers than at any time in the past decade.

9 out of 13 key industries and employment areas are expected to take on more graduates than in 2014, with the public sector, accounting and professional services firms, banks and finance, retail and the Armed Forces seeing the largest growth in vacancies.

A whopping 31% of this years’ graduate positions are expected to be filled by students who have already worked for their organisations, either through paid internships, industrial placements or vacation work.

Graduate starting salaries in 2015 are expected to rise for the second year running with more than a quarter of top graduate programmes paying starting salaries of £35,000 or higher.